1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to a structure for supporting a suspension system for a vehicle, and more particularly to such a structure used to support a front-midship-engine type vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a front-engine front-drive vehicle, a power plant including an engine and a differential is generally positioned sideways in an engine room with the center of gravity of the engine positioned in front of the wheel center of the front wheels. In such a front-engine front-drive vehicle, there have been problems in that an understeering tendency is excessively enhanced by the heavy load acting on the front wheels due to the weight of the power plant disposed in front of the front wheels and the moment of the weight, in that freedom in designing the front portion of the vehicle body is limited due to the power plant's being disposed at the front of the vehicle body, and in that the wheel houses disposed near the passenger room adversely affect the arrangement of the accelerator pedal, the brake pedal and the clutch pedal in the passenger room. In order to overcome these problems, there has been proposed a front-midship engine type vehicle in which the power plant is positioned so that the center of gravity of the engine is behind the wheel center of the front wheels as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 63(1988)-23219, for example.